


You Can't Give Me Orders

by captainoutoftime



Series: Don't You Dare Be Late [1]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, BAMF Peggy Carter, Bottom Steve, D/s, Dom/sub, F/M, Fanboy Phil Coulson, Fluff, Gratuitous Smut, Lost Bucky Barnes, Steggy - Freeform, Steve Has Issues, Steve Needs a Hug, these tags are like spoilers rn omg, well. eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-25
Updated: 2014-09-25
Packaged: 2018-02-18 16:44:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2355407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainoutoftime/pseuds/captainoutoftime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Old things are discussed, new things need to be discussed. As usual, your questions/comments are welcome.</p>
        </blockquote>





	1. You're Late

Two months after the collapse of SHIELD, Steve gets a call from Coulson. Most of it verges on the edge of a gritted-teeth not-quite-screaming match when Steve finds out that Phil's planning to reboot SHIELD as its new director, but the conversation takes an abrupt term for the odd when PHIL starts talking about archives.

"Archives?" Steve asks incredulously. "You called to tell me about the archives you've been digging through?"

"No, listen," Phil insists heatedly, "SHIELD lied to you."

Steve snorts into the phone, shaking his head. "That's new?"

"Are you quite finished, Captain?" Phil's tone is dry, and he pauses to let Steve finish his incoherent grumbling before he speaks again. "SHIELD had cryostasis projects going too, not just HYDRA."

️Steve's hesitant to reply, and he's starting to get anxious over whatever it is Phil's going to tell him.

"Agent Carter didn't die on a mission for SHIELD," Phil said bluntly. He lets the sentence sit in the air, the phone line crackling with silence. Steve doesn't breathe in the moments of silence, heart clenching like a fist in his chest.

"Phil," he spits. "Phil, what. What, Phil."

"Agent Carter volunteered for a cryostasis experiment...the date she selected to be revived was in 1970. But she...we hadn't...we just woke her up a little while ago."

Steve can't breathe. His chest is impossibly tight, and his head feels like it's packed with cotton, too full for normal thought. "What." Not a question, a demand. "Phil, what?!" he protests. "Phil?" His voice cracks a little at the last question.

"We've been helping her acclimate for the last two months. Since she found out- which- I mean, it wasn't an easy conversation, she actually slapped me across the face, but, after she found out you were still alive, she's been demanding to see you."

Steve's head pounds, and he almost feels like he's going to be sick. "Phil, what? What the fuck, Phil? Two months! Two months, Phil?!" He slams the phone down.

Peggy has tears in her eyes when he first walks into the room. A bright-eyed, daring-to-hope, smile on her perfectly-shaped lips. She wears the same color lipstick she always did, and though they’ve only ever shared one kiss before, it feels only natural to press his lips to hers, to hold her as if no time at all has passed. He has no idea how long it was they stand there, him holding her half-off the ground, face buried in her hair, her hands making fists in his shirt as if terrified he’d be ripped away again.

“You’re late,” she whispers, and at that, Steve actually laughs.

For the first time since he’d woken up, he feels like the world might make sense again.

* * *

 

 

 

It’s the first time he sees her bare feet that he realizes he’s never seen them before. Steve stares for a while as they sit on the porch, struck with the thought of how little he knows of her outside the Army uniform.

“What?” she asks, nudging him with an elbow.

“It’s a good thing you don’t have weird toes,” he teases, “That could be a deal-breaker.”

She laughs and throws pillows at him, demanding that he apologize, which he ends up doing on bended knee, pleading with wringing hands for her forgiveness, which- with a royal flourish, he receives, because, as Peggy had said with a mock-serious expression, she was a benevolent queen.

It doesn’t matter that he’s a firm believer in democracy, he would serve as her subject until he died if she wanted him to. She doesn’t want him to die, though. Mostly, he figures she wants him to explain why iPads can’t get internet in the park but iPhones can. Mostly, he figures she wants him to help her carry her boxes into his apartment. Mostly, he figures she’s just happy to have an ally. He is too.

She doesn’t seem to mind his full-time job, either. No, he’s not getting paid, but he can’t just stop looking for Bucky either. Steve spends at least forty hours a week and sometimes more searching for him. He’s canvassed the DC area completely. He’s thoroughly scoured Brooklyn, too, just in case, but Bucky is nowhere to be found. Peggy can’t take those worries away, but she can dull the edges, and sometimes, she helps him. She doesn’t mind sitting in the passenger seat and catching up on modern music while Steve drives in endless circles, haunted eyes searching, searching. Sometimes she holds his hand, and it makes his heartache less painful.

Neither of them would say they’re entirely adjusted to the modern world, but they’re getting used to it. Some things come easier than others. The guilt-free sex, for one, is pretty easy to adjust to.

Peggy laughs at his half-mumbled confession, silencing him with a kiss.

“Oh, Steve, I know,” she giggles, “I’ve watched you blush when the boys talked about their...escapades. Darling, I knew a long time ago.”

After that, Steve’s not so worried, because Peggy doesn’t seem to care. If anything, she seems excited. He supposes she’s got every right to be. She’s his first, and if things go his way, she will be his only. He can’t imagine someone else in his arms this way. He can’t imagine someone who could possibly know his body better than he does, who could know exactly what he wants before he knows he wants it. He can’t imagine someone who could know the tiny guy he used to be and still whisper how she wanted to touch him like this since the first day they met. He nearly comes just at that, and Peggy chuckles low in her throat, though her eyes are filled with nothing but sincerity. He can’t imagine wanting someone else’s hand pulling on his hair, someone else’s hips grinding down on his. He can’t imagine loving anyone else this much.

They sleep chest-to-chest more often than not, because Steve likes to be the little spoon, but is just too big for that to be practical, Peggy insists with a roll of her eyes. He loves to hold her anyway, so it doesn’t really matter. He likes waking up with her cuddled across his body, her head on his chest. He likes falling asleep with his head against her shoulder, her fingers in his hair. He loves her. He loves being with her. It’s the one easy thing in his life.

But the past has always had a way of hurting the things he loves. Peggy has questions, and he’s not ready to talk about the answers. Steve has nightmares, and Peggy can’t get to the causes. He won’t talk about them, and it’s making her crazy. They don’t fight about it, because neither of them wants to fight. They just sit and look at each other, and wonder who will figure out the magic solution.

 **  
**It’s Steve with the solution, but it’s by no means magic. It’s a bit of a cop-out, and he’s pretty sure she knows. She always does.


	2. To Choose

“It makes sense,” she says in a calm, albeit melancholy tone as she looks absently at her empty palms. “If HYDRA was inside SHIELD the whole time, it would only be natural for ideas to flow back and forth, even if SHIELD didn’t know that was happening.”

Coulson just nods, a complacent smile on his lips. He’s gotten his thrilled expression under control, then, Steve notes. Peggy didn’t exactly know about Phil’s schoolboy obsession with the Captain America comics, but she’s definitely picked up on some of his excitement to meet her throughout the course of the so-far brief conversation. That could be attributed to the fact that she was the co-founder of SHIELD, too, though, Steve considers.

They’re here mostly because Steve hadn’t been able to tell her himself, what her organization had become, had been all along. It's a cop-out. They both know that, but he was quite honest when he told her he just didn't know how to explain the answers to her questions. Possibly because he still hates thinking about it, but mostly just because he couldn’t tell Bucky’s story alone. He knows he won’t make it all the way through, and that will just be embarrassing, and he doesn’t need any more humiliation. She already sees the worst parts of him, the pieces of himself that are pathetically cracked and don’t fit in place anymore. Much as he tries to cover them up, the taped-up fix jobs never hold long, and are never convincingly hidden.

 

“Who else then?” Peggy asks, sitting upright again with a breath and looking Coulson in the eyes, the laser-straight stare that melts Steve’s resolve every time he sees it. Coulson doesn’t seem immune to it either- and that's not surprising. Steve doesn’t know anyone capable of lying to that stare. “Someone else we knew, yes? Who was it?” Sharper than your average German bayonet, she is, and always had been. She knows she’d been brought here for more than a casual discussion of the cryostasis experiment that brought her to this time, of course she did.

Phil throws Steve a sideways look, but the captain stares pointedly at a fixed spot on his shoe, as if trying to discern its secrets, arms resting on his knees in an uncharacteristically informal position- bent over, defeated. The director sighs and meekly meets Peggy’s stare again, which is now complete with an impatiently raised brow. Steve glances up just for a moment- _God, she’s beautiful when she's all fired up like this_ \- and then let his head drop again, because he knows what comes next.

“James Barnes.” Coulson lets the name sit for a moment. “HYDRA...they made him into a weapon. Under the alias ‘The Winter Soldier’ he’s credited with over two dozen assassinations since they found him. He was part of HYDRA’s little coming-out party in D.C., the one Captain Rogers is mostly responsible for taking down last-”

“Yes, I know what happened in DC,” Peggy says, and there’s a touch of sharpness in her voice. Steve’s not sure whether to blame it on her being sick of people assuming she knows nothing about anything- and he knows the feeling well enough to say that’s a definite possibility- or if she’s upset about the incident in general. She pauses after her interruption and there’s a momentary silence as Peggy’s brows draw together, confusion and disbelief warring for dominance on her perfectly contoured features. “James Barnes as in...Bucky? Your-?” she asks, looking to the man beside her for answers.

Steve remains silent, mostly because it feels like theres a baseball in his throat and he’s sure he’ll choke if he tries to speak, but he manages a nod, too-bright eyes still fixed on the single fleck of dust on his shoe. Peggy gives his forearm a light squeeze, red-nailed fingers reassuringly grounding him to the moment. She doesn’t ask him any more questions, and for that, he’s grateful.

“How? The James Barnes I knew was possibly the most loyal person I’ve ever met. I don’t see how HYDRA could have gotten him to do their dirty work.”

He knows she’s just working from the brief interactions she’d had with him, the evidence she’d seen of his loyalty, and the mission reports he’d handed in, but it means more than he could ever verbalize that Peggy’s defending his oldest friend this way, even knowing he’d been responsible for putting Steve in the hospital and killing countless agents and innocents. Peggy knows how much Bucky still means to him. Of course she does. Natasha had once joked she only acted like she knew everything, but Steve is growing increasingly convinced that Peggy actually does know everything. He laces his hands together and wishes she’d hold onto him again.

“They created a machine that...for all intents and purposes, it wiped his memories out. Once they’d done it enough, he was a clean slate they could load orders and programming into, and he wouldn’t know to question any of it,” Phil explains, obviously choosing his words carefully. “The perfect assassin.”

Steve’s hands tighten together as he fights to keep his expression neutral, and the speck on his shoe begins to blur before his eyes. He presses his thumbnail into his opposite wrist, digging in to give himself something to focus on other than the image of Bucky’s ghost-filled eyes, his haunted, hollow cheekbones, the look of horror on his face when Steve used their old catchphrase.

“He’s...gone then?” Peggy asks quietly. Her voice was soft, but that didn’t make her question any more delicate, any easier to hear.

Steve bites his lip hard, feeling his shoulders and back tighten up, tension holding his body like a clenched fist. He’s glad he brought her to Coulson for this, because if he’d done this alone, the conversation would have ended right now.

“We haven’t found any traces of him,” Phil replies, and Steve can feel the man’s eyes on him. “Search efforts have been so far...fruitless.”

He might as well just call Steve out. Steve knows that SHIELD still monitors him- hell, why wouldn’t they? He’s sure they know about his countless hours spent scouring the world for Bucky. That doesn’t mean he’ll give up, though. He never will. He lost Bucky once, he won’t let it happen again.

“No, no,” Peggy says, shaking her head. “I mean his mind. Is he gone? Entirely?”

“No.” Steve cuts Coulson off before he gets the chance to get a single word out. Though his words are directed at Peggy, Steve stares Coulson down the whole time he speaks. “He’s...damaged. But he knew me. I know he did. He dragged me out of the river. He saved my life.”

“Steve,” Coulson begins, adopting the kind-father tone that occasionally makes Steve want to punch him in the face. “That’s not- you know there’s no evidence to support that...you probably just don’t remember swimming out. There was no DNA- no footprints even.”

“No, Phil, that’s not what happened. I’m telling you, he pulled me out of there. There’s no other way,” Steve says belligerently, sitting up straight for the first time to properly glare at him.

“You were in shock, you’ve said a lot of the details were fuzzy. It’s very possible that you wouldn’t remember swimming out when your brain was-”

“I wanted to die,” Steve says bluntly. “I was gonna let myself drown there, so when I woke up on the bank I- there’s just- he had to- there’s no other way.”

The confession slips out by accident, and it makes his cheeks burn. _Fuck._ He’s going to have to deal with that later, he just knows it. Steve’s nail digs harder into his wrist, and he’s staring at the red mark as he pushes on it. “He’s not gone,” he mumbles, and shame washes through him for the way he sounds like a scared kid.

The silence in the room makes him think that Coulson might be in shock. He’s too terrified to even look over at Peggy. Steve bites on his lip until he tastes blood, and that’s not even enough to distract from the crushing quiet that suffocates the room.

Peggy takes his hands and moves them into her lap, separating them and holding them with her own. She places the blood-trickling wrist on the inside, where it will draw less attention, and gives his other hand a squeeze. “I believe you.”

It doesn’t fix anything. It doesn’t make the cut heal and it doesn’t bring Bucky back, but it’s exactly what Steve needs to hear in that moment. His eyes are growing red as they meet hers, but there’s some strangled semblance of the idealistic hope he used to have there, and that’s more than has been there in weeks.

* * *

 

He’s just waiting for her to bring it up. The tension is building up so tightly he’s twitching at the smallest noises, nearly drops a plate at movement from a flower in the windowbox. It’s not silent-treatment kind of quiet- and that’s not how they fight anyway, their fights are bullet-in-your-new-shield, screaming-match-for-five-minutes-apologies-for-an-hour flash burns. It’s just quiet. And it’s getting to him. Really getting to him.

He throws up a white flag as she reaches for the lightswitch.

“Peg? We- we’ve gotta talk about...today, with...” he swallows, nerves coming up to muzzle him as he looks over at her back. “I can’t take the quiet anymore.”

Peggy pauses, and Steve curses himself for not waiting just a few more moments, so he could have the cover of darkness to shield himself with.

“I do want to talk about it,” she says agreeably, rolling onto her side to face him. “I want to talk about this,” she murmurs, taking his hand, running a finger gently over the already-healed-over spot where the tiny cut had been. “And I know you don’t like talking about these things...but it’s time.”

Steve closes his eyes. She’s right. He knows she’s right. But that doesn’t make it easier to broach the subject. He closes his eyes and promises himself that she’ll love him anyway, love him despite his many weaknesses. She always has before.

“It...sometimes it makes it easier to think,” he mumbles.

It’s quiet again, just a soft rustle of the sheets as Peggy pulls Steve’s hand up to her lips and kisses it. “Pain?” she asks, and somehow, there’s no judgement in her voice, no condescension.

“Yeah.”

“Mm.”

He’s always amazed with her capacity to understand, to sympathize without pitying. Peggy places his hand over her heart, and Steve cracks his eyes open.

“I know what you mean, Steve,” she says softly. “But I can’t have you harming yourself. I don’t need to know if you have before...I don’t need to know about when...when Bucky saved you. I just need to know you’re not going to injure yourself.”

“I wasn’t, I won’t...” he half-whispers. “Just...I just wanted...”

“What, Steve?” she prompted gently.

“I wanted to- to...feel. I wanted to feel something and I wanted to- to feel like I’m- like I can control what hurts me for once in my goddamned life.”

The words are out, and he feels less heavy for harboring them at the same time that he’s surprised by how true they ring. He breathes heavy for a moment or two, amazed. He’d never thought that was what the problem was...but this is it, this is the truth.

Peggy doesn’t comment, doesn’t say a word. She just leans forward to kiss him, soft, slow. It’s a thousand ‘it’s okay’s in one touch, and she takes some of his tension as she nestles against his chest, arms wrapped around him. “Alright, love. That’s alright.”

Steve doesn’t realize he’s staring wide-eyed at the ceiling until her fingers are brushing over his eyelids, caressing them shut. “Shh. Shh, Steve,” she murmurs, though he hasn’t made a sound. Her other hand is on his chest, pushing against it, and it’s then that he takes a breath. The sensation makes him realize it might have been a minute or so since he had done so last. “Go to sleep, love,” Peggy says as she presses kisses against his cheeks, down his neck, along his jaw. “Just sleep. I love you, and you’re alright.” He falls asleep pacing himself to the regular rhythm of her breathing.

****  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Old things are discussed, new things need to be discussed. As usual, your questions/comments are welcome.


End file.
